


The Marshmallow Test

by wendymarlowe



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, For Science!, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymarlowe/pseuds/wendymarlowe
Summary: “John,” Sherlock said, over-bright. “We, ah, didn’t realize you’d be home early.”“I see that. Let me guess - experiment?”Sherlock straightened. “Of course!”Rosie looked from Sherlock to John, then - probably assuming John was going to take away all the fun - banged her little fist on her highchair tray and jammed a soggy handful of chocolate Hobnob into her mouth.





	

John walked in the door to find Sherlock and Rosie sitting opposite each other at the table, two mostly-empty packets of chocolate Hobnobs between them and identical guilty looks on their faces. Sherlock’s, at least, was guilty - Rosie probably didn’t understand why he was making that expression but she was solidly into a Sherlock-worship phase and emulated his every move anyway.

“John,” Sherlock said, over-bright. “We, ah, didn’t realize you’d be home early.”

“I see that. Let me guess - experiment?”

Sherlock straightened. “Of course!”

Rosie looked from Sherlock to John, then - probably assuming John was going to take away all the fun - banged her little fist on her highchair tray and jammed a soggy handful of chocolate Hobnob into her mouth. 

“We were performing the marshmallow test,” Sherlock declared. Rosie started signing “more,” and Sherlock absentmindedly nudged another biscuit close enough she could reach it. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to learn that your daughter possesses the delayed gratification abilities of a child almost triple her chronological age.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose. Sherlock and Rosie together were making him do that a lot lately. “Doesn’t look like marshmallows to me,” he grumbled.

“ _Obviously_.” Sherlock sniffed. “Rosie thinks marshmallows are disgusting. As do I.”

“Ucky,” Rosie agreed. That was another thing John had to thank Sherlock for - her first word had been “dadada” like most babies, but that had been closely followed by “no,” “ucky,” and “Joooooooohn!” Lately she was trying to add “bored” and “experiment” to the list, almost entirely through Sherlock’s diligent efforts. How someone who found half the murders in London terribly dull could devote hours and hours and _hours_ to babbling with a toddler and trying to teach her formal BSL was completely beyond comprehension.

“She’s _two_ ,” John pointed out. “She probably doesn’t know what marshmallows are. I assume this has nothing to do with the fact that _you_ love chocolate Hobnobs so much that they are the one thing I can consistently get you to eat?”

Sherlock made an affronted noise, which Rosie immediately attempted to copy. “I can’t help it if I have superior taste, John.”

“Right.” _Berk._ The kitchen abruptly felt too small for all three of them, so John backtracked to the door so he could shed his coat and toe off his shoes. All he really wanted was a quick snuggle from Rosie and then a long nap, but napping with Sherlock in the house had always been an iffy proposition even before Rosie came along. Sherlock usually didn’t mind taking the overnight baby-watching shifts, in deference to John’s need to actually sleep once in a while, but that didn’t mean John felt anything like well-rested.

“The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment was originally run by Walter Mischel in the late 1960s,” Sherlock intoned. “The longitudinal results suggested that children who were able to delay eating a marshmallow - unsupervised - in exchange for receiving two marshmallows approximately fifteen minutes later went on to have better life outcomes as measured by university entrance exam scores, educational attainment, eventual income, and several other measures. Approximately a third of the children in the study, ages three through five, were capable of delaying gratification. Rosie and I have been working on it.”

_Bloody_ . . . John groaned. “Of course you have. How many of those has she eaten?”

If Sherlock noticed the annoyance in John’s voice, he ignored it. “In this experimental trial,” he declared, “I placed one biscuit on her tray every minute, continuing only until she took her first bite. We’ve worked our way up from several disappointing false starts over the last few weeks and I think she’s learning the importance of brain over transport-”

“ _How many,_ Sherlock?”

“Twelve minutes, today.”

“Christ.” There was absolutely no way she’d eat a proper supper, then. And no way she’d sleep, either, not with that much sugar in her system. Although the crumbs on the floor surrounding her highchair looked like they’d assemble about a Hobnob and a half, so at least that was something. “I assume you ate the rest, then? I just bought those yesterday!”

Sherlock sighed and attempted to look down his nose at John. It was much less effective than usual, given that he was seated and John was standing in the doorway and Sherlock also had little bits of Hobnob debris stuck around the edges of his mouth and dusting the front of his dress shirt. “I had to ensure the instructions for the participant were demonstrated to her satisfaction, of course,” he said.

“I see.” And John did. “I suppose you won’t want curry tonight, then?”

Sherlock’s expression turned contemplative. “The spicy one I like, with the chicken?”

“If you want.”

“Then curry would be acceptable.”

“Excellent.” John extricated Rosie from her chair and dumped her on Sherlock’s lap. “I’ll call in our order and you can just go get her cleaned up, then. Since it was _your_ experiment and it’s for science and all. Might want to try her on the potty before you put her in the tub - learned that one the hard way last time, unless you deleted it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but - even as Rosie stuck her chocolate-covered fingers in his hair - he was smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> For those among us (including me) who have never actually had Hobnobs, Google says they look like this:
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT #2: [Amazon carries them! ](https://www.amazon.com/McVities-Milk-Chocolate-Nobs-10-5-Ounce/dp/B004DC9BBU/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1499982707&sr=8-2&keywords=hobnobs) They've pretty much replaced graham crackers as my default snack food. They're surprisingly filling, if not low-calorie, and I consider them a not-terrible breakfast for my kids before they go off and run around all day. Certainly comparable to sugary breakfast cereal, anyway. I highly recommend giving them a try if you're somewhere you can get them - I like these, but my husband likes the dark chocolate ones better.


End file.
